Westminstenders: What hangs in the balance?

[RedToothBrush]

Yellow Hammer (and Black Swan if it exists) and other documents the government itself has produced are our truths and our evidence.

I look to Thomas Jefferson quotes in trying to defend liberal democracy.

His most famous of quotes is

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration states, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….”

Self evident truths. These are the bedrock of democracy.

There are many more quotes from Jefferson which talk about the shining beacon of truth and the threats to liberty from falsehoods and those who tell them.

He argued that when the power of the state is used to avoid scrutiny we should be worried and afraid. As a leader he should never be afraid of the truth, because the truth always exists and you can only merely hide it before it makes itself apparent anyway.

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

Today I feel the need to dust off old Jefferson for my own sanity and to remind myself of what matters. Jefferson helps me focus on dangers and how you fight back. It always comes back to exposure to the truth - how do you work to expose this (and the role of journalism in this)

Seek the truth. Talk the truth. Even if that means being self critical and humble in admitting your mistakes and errors.

It is not your identity as Leaver, Remainer, Tory, Labour, LDer, SNPer, woman, man, English, Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh or European right now.

These identities are harming us, by making us look at the wrong thing rather than see the real danger facing us. They divide us whilst they conquer us.

What you should be focusing on NOW is your commitment to democracy in the face of someone in power actively and explicity saying the rule of law does not matter and the courts are wrong. That is advocating mob rule.

Johnson stood and said threats to MPs were humbug. And refused to moderate his language despite so many (mainly female) MPs saying the threats they received were extremely serious (remembering we've even had a prosecution for a plot to kill Rosie Cooper as well as other successful prosecutions for threats to MPs)

This is where we are at.

Focus on it.

No Deal Brexit and the future of liberal democracy in this country are indivisible and inseparable. They are entwined by the rule of law.

Brexit is NOT in of itself a threat to liberal democracy. It is HOW we leave that is.

I wish this was being said and emphasised concisely and cleanly.

All these possible ways round could each use up a couple of days and BJ only needs 12 days until No Deal

The HoC know there is only 1 sure way to stop him - and that's to replace him
If they don't .... and we get No Deal on 31 October, then I shall judge them very harshly

btw, I hate to be paranoid, but the CCA could justifiably be invoked if we had terrorist acts, drone attacks, serious infrastructure hacking in the next 2-3 weeks ....

I certainly don't suggest the Tories could or would organise those,
but we know Putin wants No Deal chaos,
so do several billionaire oligarchs, Big Pharma, giant tech firms in the USA & elsswhere
and quite possibly some old enemies in the Middle East might take the opportunity to cause maximum damage

Deux who was second last time in your constituency? If it's Labour, it may be better to vote for them (tactically) to ensure Raab loses his seat.

It’s Labour, just.... There’s a huge risk in such seats that the anti-Tory vote will be split as people try to second guess each other. I’m not sure of the best solution.

However, simply looking at the 2017 election isn’t the best way to ascertain what the current level of support is as Labour support has plummeted, and LD support rocketed, since then.

I’d look at the EU election result (split by parliamentary consistency on wikipedia) as a more reliable basis for how people are thinking currently. I’ve not looked, but I bet the LD vote was way ahead of the Labour vote.

Very surprised to see my local Tory MP - the worm Stephen Crabb, actually state he was shocked by BJs response to the remarks about Jo Cox yesterday.. adding he should apologise..
Blimey, we're a leave constituency, and Crabb is usually a snake!

Flouncy Esher is mainly affluent but in a traditional way. I wrote on the last thread exactly the sort of traditional Conservative voters who will be uncomfortable with what is going on. It is next to Kingston and Twickenham which both went back to the Lib Dem’s last election. I can’t believe Zac will keep his seat in Richmond. If anywhere is going to go yellow it is south west London

Incidentally in terms of Bozos behaviour to women last night, Zac has been misogynist to both female candidates he has been up against, in fact his whole family have since they seem to feel entitled to the seat and incapable of understanding why anyone would vote for a female accountant. Watching him debate with them is depressing, talking across them, interrupting, they were both far to nice but then if they responded in kind they would be b or indeed w

Sorry that was an actual tweet from brother Ben, along the lines of it was a great result, Richmond will now be represented by a true statesman and not let down by a wet female accountant.

@flouncyfanny

medium.com/@chrishanretty/ep2019-results-mapped-onto-westminster-constituencies-8a2a6ed14146

Analysis of EU results by Westminister constituency.

For Raab’s seat, LDs got 38% and would have won! Labour got an incredibly measly 3%!!

I'll be very interested to see what happens in my constituency where Stephen Hammond is a Tory rebel. Not one to bet on, I think.

I've been imagining what it must be like to be Dominic Cummings; so totally void of morality, and twister up by hatred. His face always looks so violently contorted.

But then imagine being his wife and choosing to be with him.

Google images of Cummings and the only one I could find wear he didn't look like an obvious psychopath, was from the Daily Express.

I was pleased to hear recently that the local LDs have selected a strong, well-liked candidate. It’s always been Tory here, but I think people are getting fed up with the arrogant MP and so I’m hopeful.

David Herdson @ davidherdson
Big slide in Boris Johnson personal ratings.

Boris Characteristics, net agree (YouGov, change vs 5-6 Sept)

Competent -17 (down 13)
Decisive +25 (down 11)
Strong +10 (down 11)
Honest -30 (down 6)
Likeable -5 (down 9)
Authentic -20 (down 4)
In touch -30 (down 6)

More like this please.

David Herdson @ davidherdson
However, despite the slide in Johnson's personal ratings, the Tory lead with YouGov remains solid. (Change vs 17-18 Sept)

Con 33 (+1)
Lab 22 (+1)
LD 22 (-1)
BxP 14 (n/c)
Grn 6 (+2)

That Con lead, however, is propped up by 15% of the 2016 Remain vote backing the Tories. I wonder how long the govt can continue to behave as it has this week without alienating that share of its vote.

On the other side, Labour's share is so disastrously low (22% - that's 6% worse than their 1983 share), due to:

- a larger abstention (DK/WNV/Ref) rate than for the other parties: 23% vs 16% Con, 17% LD; and
- a defection of some 28% to the LDs of what remains.

If the Remain/Leave subsections are accurate, Lab is in real trouble in its Leave heartlands:

YouGov, 24-25 Sept (2016 Leave voters only):

Con 54
BxP 28
Lab 9
LD 4
Grn 3

It's true that Lab doesn't need to win the Leave vote to win Leave seats but it does need more than this.

Thank you again Red.

I'm surprised that no-one has picked up that Johnson (I'm going to try to be more respectful and not lower myself to his level I know that some on here will be pleased ) said in his interview that, "I think that what that act would [my emphasis] do is take away the power of the government"

Would? Would?

No, you arrogant idiot (trying to be respectful didn't last long - but I'm merely stating facts )

It does take away the power of the government to deliberately No Deal as a threat. It IS law. Like it or not, the Bill has received Royal Assent and IS law.

But it does go to show his attitude towards it.

I admit I give polls the same amount of weight I do Facebook petitions

anybody can click any button they like
its all meaningless

until the rhetoric and headlines and bile and infection in the system reduce
Democracy in the UK is in great danger

Belatedly PMK

In the EU elections there were at least 2 tactical voting websites and for my region they gave conflicting advice on who to vote for. Complete waste of time.

Next election, they need only one. One.

Ah EU results dont really ever apply to GE.

Given the circumstances of the EU election and the forthcoming GE, I would expect the correlation would be higher than usual regarding the relative performance of Labour and LDs.... far more so than the 2017 GE.

The most sensible tweet of the day

Carrie Quinlan
The Sir David Attenborough is officially named today. The advisory public vote to call it Boaty McBoatface was ignored because it was deemed a stupid idea that would make the UK look foolish. Morning,
@BorisJohnson
.
8:55 AM · Sep 26, 2019

I've had this from Heidi Allen's Unite to Remain updates, don't think it's been posted here:

A message from Heidi Allen MP
The Supreme Court judgement this week was a triumph for the rule of law, but a step we should never have had to take.

Johnson’s cavalier response and his arrogant and bullying approach to governing has pushed us to the brink of a constitutional crisis. But nothing is set in stone and we have an opportunity to overcome this challenge as we continue to form the cross-party Remain alliance.

Ahead of an inevitable General Election we are helping to form cross-party agreements whereby Remain supporting parties will agree that there will be only one Remain General election candidate in key constituencies.

We are targeting up to 100 seats and hope to be announcing the first batches of agreed candidates in the coming weeks. As we announce candidates, we will pair them with donor support.

This is the only way we can stop Brexit and prevent the frightening prospect of a 5 year term Johnson majority government.

So thank you again for your support. A General Election is coming, and we are determined to be ready.

Heidi Allen MP
Chair
Unite to Remain

Hope it comes to something.

I said the same thing today to dh about Boaty McBoatface Pesty

If only we'd learnt about the perils of "popular" polls before the Referendum - the Boaty McBoatface one was in March 2016.

There was the warning

That Remain Alliance looks promising and sensible
Hopefully those 100 seats are marginals / potential marginals, for maximum effect

BUT
If Brexit happens before the GE, then it's all academic

Just casually looking at my TVs programme guide and I see for tonight's listing we have at 9.00 pm on BBC1 episode two of The Cameron Years and the warning "Contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting "

"If the Remain/Leave subsections are accurate, Lab is in real trouble in its Leave heartlands:"

Those figures are shocking for Labour;
Leavers are 30% of their 2015 vote
if their internal polls have been showing similar effects, this explains much of the reluctance to come all out for Revoke
Probably a lost cause by now though

The loss of Remainers to the LDems indicates their attempt to pacify both meant losing more votes in total than if they had gone all out to shore up the 70% of their vote, as the Tories did.

In contrast, the Tories have kept far more of their Remainers, by effectively demonising Corbyn and Labour
Labour don't seem to have done much to remind their Lexiters of the Tories record and the Britannia Unchained plans

The Tory strategy is to target Labour Leave seats
Those numbers indicate that a lot of the lost votes must be there
Are they mostly to BXP, or to the Tories, I wonder

Ive listened to the podcast recommended here this morning, off to buy the book!!
podtail.com/en/podcast/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast/curious-minds-discussing-turkey-and-losing-democra/

If Brexit happens before the GE, then it's all academic

No, it’s still highly relevant... If BJ does some how manage to crash us out on 31 Oct, I’m sure Remainers won’t simply give up and hand the subsequent GE to BJ on a plate. They’ll be even more determined to ensure he gets beaten at the ballot box!